After
by COMMANDERBRICK
Summary: An extension of the events during the end of Mass Effect 3, (some scenes from the very end, but the rest takes place after the gameplay ends). Tells what's happening on the Normandy while Shepard's on the catalyst, what's happening to Shepard in the days following. Recovery after the war. Female Shepard x Garrus, destroy ending, prequel to my fic, "Archangel's Daughter."
1. Chapter 1

They run. Were they running from the Reapers, or towards the beam? Did it matter anymore?

Commander Shepard tries not to think about who she was with. The orders were for someone, anyone, to make it to the beam, even if that meant going it alone. If one of her companions fell, would she see it happen? Would she want to?

Then she snaps back to reality. A beam, from Harbinger, cuts across the field. Does it hit someone? No one she knows. _Keep running_. A second beam hits a truck, she dodges it. She allows herself a split second of relief, then realises where it's headed.

She turns to yell, she's ended endless wars by yelling, stopped the most steadfast man she's ever met from killing her by yelling, united races, convinced trillions to fight and die for her by yelling.

But it's too late. She sees the truck flip and land on the ground, hard. A cloud of dust. She should keep going towards the beam, but her muscles act without her permission, before she can even form this rational thought. In fact, the thought never forms.

She hardly notices the rest of the world as she runs back towards the truck, leaps over rubble. For the first time in years she thinks not of the lives of the trillions of lives that depend on her. She's not scared for them, or for their unborn children. She's not afraid for distant friends who fight without her help. She thinks only of the woman she's come to think of as a sister, and the man she's come to love, lying in the rubble. Her two most loyal friends, with her from the beginning. Have they finally died for her?

First, she makes it to Tali'Zora.

"Tali…" her voice cracks as she says it. Parts of the quarian's enviro-suit are completely stripped off. She should never have asked Tali to fight with her on Earth. Amazing, brave Tali. She should have asked anyone else, she realised. Tali was always the smallest, a genius, but never as effective at fighting Reapers as the rest of her companions. She should have brought EDI, with her disposable body, or James for the muscle, or-

"I'm fine, Shepard," she wheezed, "just winded. I can walk." Her voice, surprisingly steady, convinces Shepard, who then finds Garrus.

His leg is shredded. The blue armor and his blue blood making it hard for her to identify flesh from metal from plastic. She can't stop the concern from flooding her features. She throws his arm over her shoulder, the three of them hobbling as fast as they can to relative shelter.

 _Save them._

She says nothing, panic seizing her thoughts.

He says nothing, he thinks that his and Tali's injuries have doomed the galaxy.

Shepard screams into her com, argues with her best friend. She knows it's not safe, that she's risking everyone on her ship for this evac, but she owes these people. Tali and Garrus, who've been with her from the very beginning. They've risked everything they had and put their lives on hold to follow her countless times. Even while she sits there she knows she can't go with them, but her heart still soars in her chest when she sees her beautiful ship land, maybe one last time.

Tali gets there first, and it takes more strength than Shepard's ever used to speak her next words.

"Here, take him."

She doesn't want to look him in the eye as she passes him off to her friend, but, like so many other times, looks straight into her biggest fear and attacks.

"I've got to be get out of here."

"And you've got to be kidding me."

She didn't expect him to sound so surprised, it makes it harder. Each word feels like she's sinking a blade into his chest. A final surge of emotion overcomes her. _Don't stay long. Whatever he says, don't answer him. If you stay too long, you'll never leave._

"Don't argue, Garrus."

She tries to sound commanding, but falters at his name.

"We're in this 'till the end."

They're the only two people in the galaxy.

"No matter what happens here, you know I love you."

She reaches out, touches the scars on his face that she's stroked, kissed. How she wanted to kiss his cheek, but if he touched her back she was certain she'd freeze, and the gate would close, and the _Normandy_ would fly off with her inside.

"I always will."

"Shepard, I..."

He touches her hand, they look into each other's' eyes. While it lasts, it seems to go on forever. When it ends, it was nothing more than a heartbeat. They say more in that silence than they've ever said with words.

"…love you too."

Tali starts to march him away; she knows her friends, knows what Shepard needs. The release of his hand jolts Shepard back to Earth, she looks behind her at Harbinger, readying its beam. She turns one last time towards the _Normandy_ , trying to ignore Garrus' outstretched hand.

 _"Go!"_ She refuses eye contact with him, instead directing her command at her crewmates and Tali. When she turns, she forgets him, forgets everyone. It's just her and the beam.

His hand drops, he looks at her for just one more moment, then makes his way with Tali onto the CIC.

They are swarmed by humans.

Garrus is taken from Tali by Lieutenant James Vega, while Dr. Liara T'Soni grabs her hand and speaks to her calmly. Otherwise, humans do scans of the injured quarian and turian, make calls to the med bay, and help them into the elevator. The same question is on everyone's minds, _where is Commander Shepard?_ No one asks.

Joker looks back at the men and women bringing his friends to the elevator.

"No…" he speaks to himself, but EDI answers, "Jeff, her vitals are strong. We have every reason to believe that she will be successful."

"It's not that I'm worried about… I know she's going to kick the Reapers' asses." He turns back to face the console, "I just hope she makes it out… poor guy."

"Jeff, it is counterproductive to worry about that now," she puts a hand on his shoulder and looks him in the eyes, "and if she doesn't… it's not your fault."

When they get to the med bay, Tali is stripped from her suit by Dr. Chakwas and a Lieutenant who arrived with Admiral Hackett. Both are wearing sterile gloves, and everyone in the room is wearing surgical masks. Liara convinces Karen to let her hold Tali's hand through the process, also wearing gloves. Through the entire process, tears had been silently falling down her cheeks. She doubted any of the aliens here would know the difference, and it was likely that only Dr. Chakwas knew what a quarian even looks like under their suit.

"Really, Karen it's not that bad. I could probably-" she breaks out in a fit of coughing, "-probably repair this myself. Just give me 10 minutes." She was joking. The damage was bad. Dr. Chakwas smiled behind her surgical mask. "You probably could, and before I might have let you- but I'm not sure I'm ready for to tell the Admiralty Board I let you do surgery on yourself."

She's sitting on the middle cot while the strip her, and soldiers bring in a stasis pod and lift it onto the cot closest to the med bay doors. Garrus sits on the far cot near the AI core. When Tali's suit is completely peeled off, Liara lifts her with biotics and gently places her in the open pod.

Tali was still coughing, it was Liara who spoke next. "When you get of this thing, we're going to crack open that dextro-tequila I bought you last month." Tali grinned, and the door to the pod shuts. It would fill with antibiotics and pure distilled water, washing away infection, and the slightest bit of medigel would help repair her scrapes. There's still shrapnel embedded in her flesh, but it's not near any vital organs, and stopping infection is the most important thing right now.

"Lieutenant, watch her at all times. If anything about her condition changes, you come straight to me." The man signals that he's understood, and stands next to the stasis pod, scanning with his omni-tool.

She walks to the soldier treating Garrus, who briefs her on the injuries. His right shin is fractured, and his armor's dug into the flesh in a few places. His right ankle is broken. Various scrapes and bruises. Shrapnel wounds. He puts his hand on her shoulder as she kneels to examine his leg. "Please," he asks, "I need to know what's happening."

She pauses. No matter what happens, he's going to find out eventually. His wounds aren't life-threatening, but he's lost a lot of blood. If the news is bad, could he go into shock?

"EDI," she directs her voice upwards, knowing the AI can hear, "what's happening on the ground?"

If this ends up hurting Garrus, it's all her fault. She tells herself she's doing this for him, but she looks around and sees that everyone else is just as apprehensive and curious, including herself.

"There appear to be six… five soldiers still running towards the beam." James puts his hand on Garrus' shoulder Dr. Chakwas pulled a long strip of metal from his calf and placed it in a tray while two other people helped remove the rest of his armor. The clothes underneath were soaked with blood in the places where the shrapnel had struck: his right arm, his right thigh, his abdomen, and his left hip.

"Harbinger appears to have blasted the soldiers on the approach. We have lost visual." Everyone in the room holds their breath. The only noise is of bits of armor hitting the metal tray. "Witnesses on the ground report that there are… no soldiers still approaching the beam."

It's over. The end of all sentient life in the galaxy is upon them. Liara leaves the med bay, goes to her own room. James stays, frozen, with his hand on his friend's shoulder, forgetting about providing comfort or solidarity, just trying to find a way to stay stable. The world reels around him. Commander Shepard wasn't just his hero, or his CO. She was his mentor and friend. He can't believe she's failed, he blames her and hates himself for it. _She could do anything, why couldn't she do this?_ Dr. Chakwas continues treating Garrus, pushing all thoughts of her dead friend and a dying galaxy from her mind. Right now all that matters are her patients.

"Harbinger remains, it is preventing others from approaching the beam. A second reaper has landed and they are destroying all Alliance soldiers in the area." EDI continues with the updates, making everyone wish they hadn't asked. Garrus sees spots and grips the table. If only he'd asked her to stay, he thinks. If he'd grabbed her, dragged her back… then they'd have lost their best shot at defeating the Reapers, and everyone would be dead anyway. _But at least we'd be together_ , he thinks, before realising how selfish he's being. Given the choice, he would have rather died on Earth too, in one last ditch effort.

He sits there, without his armor, as Dr. Chakwas pulls the last bit of shrapnel from his body. By the time EDI speaks again, all his wounds are bandaged, and he's stopped losing blood.

"It appears… it has been confirmed that somebody has reached the beam. If it has worked… they should be on the Catalyst now."

James Vega grins. He's been wondering, _how could she fail? The great Commander Shepard, there's no way she's let us down!_ He feels guilty for thinking it, telling himself she's only human, but in that moment he knows that it's her who made it to the beam. They all know it. Garrus' expression approximates a smile.

In the War Room, Kaidan Alenko stares intently at the holographic interface showing the current state of the crucible and its relative positions to key Allied frigates. He's not sure what to do with himself. The simple fact that Admiral Hackett stands on the _Normandy_ makes him the current Captain, but he's not going to stay here forever. If Shepard never comes back… that will make Kaidan the Captain.

He tries not to think about it, tries to hold out hope that his ex-girlfriend and old friend will make it through this, but it seems bleaker every instant. She's on the Catalyst, but doesn't seem to be doing anything. If she dies without activating the Crucible, is it his job to take her place?

Instead he thinks about Lieutenant Steve Cortez, who's alive and well on Earth. He'd promised him a drink if they made it through this war, and Kaidan's hoping it will turn into something more. He holds out hope for a lot of things right now.

Com Specialist Traynor stands on the other side of the holographic interface along the wall, looking more active than he's ever seen her. She's helping Admiral Hackett coordinate "Plan B," a squadron of Turian, Geth, and Alliance forces in individual fighters trying to land on the Catalyst individually. She's coordinating between the commanding officers of each of the pilots, and relaying updates back to Admiral Hackett. Eventually, she calls for the retreat, and is asked to help coordinate strikes on the Reapers surrounding the Crucible instead.

There is no good news for a while. EDI continues to update the med bay on the conditions of the fleets, which are rapidly deteriorating. No news on Shepard, the potential saviour of the galaxy. Everyone clings to the hope that she's alive, and on the Citadel, and fixing everything right now. No one knows what's to be expected on the Citadel, but they hope, with varying degrees of confidence, that Shepard will be ready.

"I can confirm that the soldier on the Catalyst is Commander Shepard, she is in communication with Admiral Hackett right now. She seems to have reached a sort of central command but the Catalyst is not activating."

"How does she sound?" Garrus tries the keep the desperation from his voice. If EDI had a heart, it would have broken hearing Shepard's voice on the com. "She sounds determined but… tired. Ragged. She is pressing Admiral Hackett for orders, but neither of them seem to know what she must do next."

More bad news. "Commander Shepard has ceased communications." _Shepard…_

The Lieutenant assigned to watch Tali calls out, "Dr. Chakwas!" and the doctor strides to that end of the room while ordering another medical officer to put Garrus' leg in a splint. His omni-tool shows Dr. Chakwas that infection has set in on one of Tali's wounds- namely the large scrape on her mid-section. Flakes of rust and charred organic matter that weren't washed away by the fluids in the stasis pod cling to and are embedded in her flesh around a 3cm long piece of corroded iron.

Dr. Chakwas drains the pod and calls for sterile tools. She asks James to leave, and puts the room on lockdown. Any person or object that could potentially be contaminated is thrown out of the room, and an Isolation wall descends between Garrus and his doctors and Tail and hers. Tali has all the attention of the most skilled doctor in the Alliance, though she takes no comfort from it due to her lack of consciousness.

In the War Room, Com specialist Traynor is receiving reports of extreme energy surges from the catalyst, and all nearby ships are preparing retreat trajectories to land planetside on various Alliance outposts relatively nearby. Admiral Hackett attempts to contact Commander Shepard on as many frequencies as he can, but there's no response. Then the call comes from those serving on the Crucible for a full retreat. Hackett gives the order.

It's not taken well. On the bridge Joker receives the order loud and clear through a speaker, but not from the Captain he trusts. He's stalling. The hero always pulls through riiight at the end, and Commander Shepard is definitely the hero. Once they hear from her he's going to bring the _Normandy_ in and get her out of there, no matter what. Seconds go by, the order is repeated. Kaidan's voice cracks when he talks, "Joker… we have to go." Joker pauses again, as if Shepard was going to call in the next millisecond, "damn it," and he follows the course.

In the next couple hours, reports flood in of Reapers caught in the blast radius simply shutting down. Mass relays have been disabled, communications were down but are now working within a couple-light-year radius from Earth. No one has been able to establish a connection with the geth. Reports of various technological malfunctions have been coming in from all Allied forces. EDI is offline.

Garrus sits on a crate in the gun battery. His leg is in a brace but he is able to walk with a limp. He's tried to do calibrations, or clean his gun, or read turian status reports, but the numbers, fumes, and questions make him nauseous, so he just sits and stares ahead.

The _Normandy_ , and all Allied forces that had retreated during the blast, now heads back to Earth. A quarian medical vessel is waiting to receive Tali'Zora, where they will transfer her from her stasis pod to a clean room where she can be fully operated on and given a new enviro-suit.

The _Normandy_ is about to dock for a long, long time.


	2. Chapter 2

When Shepard opens her eyes, it takes a full minute to adjust to the blackness around her. The first thing she does is cough, for a long time, each cough making her entire body (the parts she can still feel, anyway) convulse. She presses her hand to her ear and tries to contact the _Normandy_ , "this is Commander Shepard... do you copy?" she can't even hear static. She tries four more times before removing the earpiece and examining it: completely fried. She looks up hopelessly at the broken metal and rubble, and wonders distantly how she came to be underneath so many broken pieces of the Citadel. Hopefully she's not near any bodies- she's fully aware that her body is covered in open wounds and burns. She decides to figure out her injuries before coming up with a Plan B for getting rescued.

She thinks a few ribs are broken, her face and right arm are covered in burns of varying degrees, but her most pressing injury is in her abdomen.

 _What the Hell happened there?_

Her memories are blocked. The wound feels like it had healed, but was wet with blood. _It probably reopened while I was coughing_. How much blood had she lost already?

She feels for her pistol- still there. She jams the heat sink, and shoots randomly away from herself until the little warning sign starts to flash. She pops the now-burning sink out from the pistol and presses it to her exposed flesh with her bare hand. She starts screaming, and holds it there almost three minutes before throwing it away and then blacking out.

She wakes up ragged. _If I'm going to die here…_ she resolves not to finish that thought.

 _Com, I need a com_. She starts to reach for her earpiece and then remembers it's busted. How much power is left on the Citadel? Can she access the extranet with her omni-tool?

When she activates it, the bright orange light makes her wince. It's drawing power from her suit, but won't last long. She can't get a signal anyway, though, and turns it off.

She stays down, listening to her own heartbeat and ragged breathing as the silence and the darkness begin to smother her. Her heart beats faster.

Then, she starts to hear something. It takes her a long time to identify it, and it cuts in and out sporadically. _Club music?_ Her mind races. If she can hear music somewhere, as long as it's not running off an individual power source, then the Citadel could still have power. If she can get her com to send out even the faintest signal, she can boost it with the Citadel. _I'm close enough to Earth… unless the Catalyst moved when it blew up… but someone should pick up my signal._

She activates her omni, which provides enough light for her to have a look at her com. She scans it and sees that a wire has burned right through the middle. She finds tweezers in her bomb kit, strips the rubber off the wire and reattaches the two ends. When she listens to the com, the static feedback tells her that a signal is being broadcast.

 _Now to tap into the Citadel…_ She looks around. She might be on part of the Presidium. She takes a deep breath and rolls onto her stomach, then drags herself in the direction with the most open space. There's some kind of walkway about two feet above her head, so she doesn't try to crawl.

She finds what could be a desk. She feels around for a terminal or anythingthat connects to the extranet or the Citadel's main power, and her hand touches the smooth cool glass of a handprint scanner. Two blue feet fizzle into view above the desk. Shepard starts laughing.

"Welcome to the Citad- Embassies, Comman- -e-ard. I am Avina. –be your guide."

"Avina," Shepard's voice sounds almost as crackly as the glitching VI's. "I need you to broadcast an SOS as far as you can."

"SPECTRE -us recognised. Please con- -dcasting device." Using the glowing blue light of the hologram, Shepard manages to hook up her com to Avina's hardware.

Above them comes a long, low, mechanical noise of shifting metal. Shepard looks up, but decides the possibility of getting a signal out is greater than the treat of falling debris.

"Avina, record this message: this is Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy SR2requesting evac from near the embassies on the Citadel. Repeat: this is an SOS, Commander Shepard requesting evac."

Avina plays back the recording, with various audio skips, and Shepard confirms it's what she wants before coughing again. The low noise is louder this time. Avina agrees to broadcast the signal once every three minutes for as long as she can. Shepard rolls onto her back again.

A large, metal structure accompanied by a deafening crash comes down on Shepard. She hears it before she sees it, and throws a barrier over herself and the Avina terminal. The strength it takes to maintain is incredible, and not just because she's supporting the weight of half the embassy floor. She realises she must be concussed or worse from the instant migraine she gets as soon as she throws up the barrier. Her hands start to shake, she knows she can't hold it much longer. She feels her amp fritz out and scampers backwards as fast as she can- but not fast enough.

Part of a ceiling comes down on top of both her legs below the knee. She screams, it's the most intense pain of her life. When she stops seeing spots she sits up to examine the damage. It's even darker than before, so she feels down her legs towards the knees. Her shins are splintered and seem to be completely flattened under the weight of the ceiling, and touching either of them hurts like Hell. She takes a deep breath, and tries to pull out her right leg. The pain is just as bad as before, and it feels like she causes the ceiling to settle on top of her legs. She hits her head on something hard and sharp, sees spots, feels the hot, metallic taste of blood in her mouth. _I'm not getting out of this one._

"Avina…" she can't see a damned thing. "_RE status –cognised. How may I assist you, -mmander?"

"Keep… keep broadcasting on as many frequencies as you can. Keep broadcasting until the entire Citadel's out of power."

The music has stopped, she has no idea how long she's been here, or how much longer she can last. She eats some kind of protein bar she finds in one of the survival pockets of what's remaining of her armor. She starts convulsing and throws up on the floor next to her. She falls asleep and wakes up so many times, all the time in the darkness becomes a blur.

A quarian vessel, the Moreh, is doing cleanup on the remains of Reapers, frigates, and pieces of the Crucible that are now derelict and orbiting the Earth and Luna, along with a couple hundred other Allied ships. One woman is sifting through communication channels, to see if there are additional vessels that could still be broadcasting, but not showing up on any other scans.

She picks up the tail end of a nearby broadcast, "-ing evac." She plays it back for her CO, they decide it's a damaged signal playing automatically from Earth, probably a dead Alliance platoon. They decide to trace the signal and send the coordinates to the Alliance.

A distant, fading blue light wakes the Commander. It follows a strange line pattern, and it's moving strangely. _It's crawling through the rubble. It's coming for me_. She reaches for her pistol, and feels around but can't find ammo. She'd thrown away her last heat sink anyway. The thing comes closer, she activates her omni-blade but the power dies almost immediately.

"Damn," she coughs, the thing moves faster. She can hear it now, a kind of snarling, growling noise. She squints. The shape is crawling, she can make out two circular circles of blue light coming towards her, brighter than the rest of it. _Husk!_ She feels around the floor in a panic, and grips a large piece of broken glass with her good hand (her right one), and shakes. She's always hated husks. She prefers going one-on-one with brutes while her squadmates pick away the cannon fodder. It's the hands she can't stand… they're still so human.

It crawls toward her, but she's ready. It lowers its head and reaches down to scrape up the congealed blood from her legs into its mouth. She starts stabbing its head with ad much force as she can summon, trying to get through the skull. As soon it realises she isn't dead it starts attacking her. It's going for her arms and face, not her torso, which proves to be its downfall. Using both hands she stabs its head until it finally goes still. She can still hear its screams as she pushes it off of her body. Both her hands are covered in deep cuts, and the burns on her left hand make it worse. She winces and tries to steady her breathing. _I'm going to die here._

It's 04:00 hours in Vancouver. Admiral Hackett's com terminal starts buzzing on the other side of his temporary living quarters. He bolts upright and makes for the terminal, "Hackett here." He knows it's important, Hell it's 4 am. If it's not then whoever's on the other line is due for a severe demotion. A familiar English voice spoke through the terminal,

"Admiral I think you'd better get down to the com hub,"

Hackett on his shoes and switches to portable communications, "on my way, Major Llongo, brief me on the way."

"Sir we… we think we've found Shepard."

In the communications hub Admiral Hackett listens to a spliced recording of the faded transmission. "The signal's stop broadcasting, Admiral, and we're unable to establish contact." He stands with one hand in front of his mouth, the other holding his elbow, thinking. "When was the last broadcast?" "13 hours ago, sir."

Played on a loop for God knows how long, and now it's long since stopped. Could she be alive? "Do we have a lock on the signal? Where's it coming from?" "We have it down to a 50 metre radius, sir, but the entire thing's collapsed in on itself. The signal could be coming from anywhere in that rubble."

He paces. _Dead or alive, by God we owe her this._ "Send a message to all Allied recovery ships not engaged in active salvage. Send the _SSV Theresa_ and have whoever finds her alert them to their exact coordinates. Get Miranda Lawson and Dr. Karin Chakwas on that ship, ASAP. Somebody get Major Kaidan Alenko and Lieutenant James Vega on the damn line!"

It takes 40 minutes to get the _SSV Theresa_ ready to go, and in that time no Allied forces have found Shepard. The atmosphere on the hospital ship is tense. They're circling the Citadel waiting for one of the three dispatched teams to locate Commander Shepard.

"What the Hell are we standin around for? We could be down there looking for her right now."

Kaidan stares out a window.

"They want you to carry her to our ship once they find her. Admiral Hackett wants members of the Alliance to be the ones to bring her home." Miranda walks over to where the two _Normandy_ crew members are standing.

"We can do that _faster_ if we actually find her."

"He's got a point," Miranda says, directed at Kaidan, "I could go with him and look for her. If we find her first I can administer medical help if… if needed. You'd still be here in case another team finds her, and Karin will still be here if you bring Shepard back."

He turns, slowly, and looks at them. They're right, he realises. "Suit up. I'll find out where the teams haven't hit and brief Hackett."

James and Miranda head to the armory, where she grabs a submachine gun and a pistol, and he starts loading up with heavy armor. "Thanks for that. I don't think he would've listened to me."

"You were right, I just made Major Alenko see that." She looks at James, "come on, let's go."

They wait in the airlock before getting clearance to exit. They jump from about two metres off the ground so the ramp doesn't have to deploy, and so the ship can get back in the air as soon as possible.

"Damn… and I thought Earth was bad." They look around, using flashlights attached to their shoulders to see. Rubble, bodies, and entire buildings simply lie around. "How the Hell does Shepard know she's near the embassies? It's all in pieces."

"She must have seen a… a landmark or something." Miranda looks around in horror. She'd always loved the Citadel, it represented the best the galaxy could achieve. To see it like this… with so many dead…

"Hey, are you alright?" James' question brings her back into focus. She knows deep down he's genuinely concerned, but she can't help but feel like her authority is being questioned when people ask her personal questions. "Yes. Let's get moving."

They move through rubble, her biotics speeding up the process greatly, while keeping in contact with Kaidan and the other teams. Finally James steps on a sign that once lit up to say, "HUMAN AMBASSADOR DONNEL UDINA." "Hey Miranda! Come look at this!"

"She must be somewhere nearby. We should call this in." They do, and the other teams (four now) are dispatched to near their location, ETA about 20 minutes as they make their ways through rubble and buildings to get to the embassy floor.

They search the rubble around them, Miranda finds a fragment of Shepard's red armor, burned black and sticky with blood, "fuck," says James quietly. Miranda swallows hard but says nothing. They keep searching.

Shepard awakes to another distant light. _I'll be damned if I let another husk come after me_. Why wouldn't they just die in peace?

"Hey Shepard! Lola! Do you hear me?"

Miranda lifts a beam of the way so they can continue on the walkway. They see Shepard at the same time, sitting up in a pool of her own blood, pinned under a chunk of what looks like a wall. She's squinting in the light of their flashlights, tense. James runs to her side.

"Shepard! _Dios mio_ , hey we're here okay? We're- ah!" she blindly swipes at him with a piece of glass in her bloody hand.

"Leave me _alone_ _!_ " He dodges the swing easily and turns to Miranda, "what the Hell?"

"She's probably in shock. Call this in, get the _Theresa_ here now, and for God's sake back away from her before she takes out an eye."

James backs up and calls the ship as Miranda approaches Shepard, turning off her light as she does so. "Shepard, listen to me. Listen!" as she takes another swipe, "I need you to drop the glass." Shepard stares blankly, _is it… is it talking to me? How can that be?_ She opens her hand but the glass doesn't drop. Miranda takes it gently and see it's completely embedded in the skin, "Shepard I can't take it out but I need you to promise me you won't attack again." Shepard looks stunned, but stops attacking.

"It's me, it's Miranda Lawson. Do you recognise me? I'm your friend, Shepard." "I… I think so." She blinks and thinks hard. _Miranda…_ "Miranda!" "We're going to get you out of here, Shepard." "You'd damn well better…"

Miranda applies medigel to the burns on her face and arms, to the wound on her torso, to the obvious damage to the head and to her burned hand. She decides not to apply the gel to the hand gripping the glass, she doesn't want the flesh to heal over it. At this point James is crouching anxiously by her side.

"Vega, help me with this." With his strength and her biotics, they attempt to tackle the ceiling crushing Shepard's legs.

"Anderson I… Anderson…" The medigel and anaesthetics kick in, combining to make her sleepy and nonsensical. James shoots back a worried glance before crouching down to lift the ceiling. They manage to get it up and off of her legs as she winces in pain.

"Looks like… looks like Hell." Vega starts to laugh until he gets a look at her legs with the light. It really does look like Hell. Beneath the knees her legs are completely flattened, the bone sticking out in several places. Miranda can even make out various neural implants that she had personally installed, and everything is covered in dried and congealed blood. Miranda peels away the armor on Shepard's thighs, and with her light on right away she can see that Shepard has blood poisoning.

"James." She takes him aside, "she's already lost the legs. I need to remove them if we're going to transport her safely. Ultimately it should cause her less pain during the process."

"This is such a damn mess… what do you need me to do?"

"Stay with her, hold her hand, give her something to bite on if she needs it. I don't have enough anaesthetic to render her unconscious or stop the pain completely." He nods and goes to her side.

"Hey, Lola. How ya doin?"

She gives a wry smile. "Vega… you got your ass out of there alive." He smiles back and holds her left hand. He and Miranda look at each other and nod. "Shepard…" "I know, Miranda. Let's just get this over with." Miranda takes out her field kit and gets to work.

Shepard closes her eyes and grips Vega's hand so hard he thinks she might fracture it. She clenches her teeth.

As they finish the procedure, Kaidan and several other crew members of the _Theresa_ arrive, with him and a few others moving rubble aside with biotics, "oh my God, Shepard!"

"Hey." His eyes start to water as he makes it to his friend's side. She finally releases Vega's hand. "They've got the whole damned Alliance out here…" Kaidan smiles and says, "You're definitely worth it, Shepard."

Carefully, the team gets her on a stretcher. As they walk back with her, fading out of consciousness, Miranda takes her hand again, "by the way Shepard… we won."


End file.
